India Hands Mumbai Dossier to Pakistan to Back Extradition Plea

India handed a dossier to Islamabad yesterday giving evidence of alleged Pakistani links to the gunmen who led the bloody rampage through Mumbai in November, asking for those responsible to be extradited to face "Indian justice".

Delhi's foreign affairs ministry said the terrorists who attacked Mumbai, leaving more than 170 dead, were linked to "elements" in Pakistan, a charge that Islamabad has said is without proof.

The evidence handed to the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi rests largely on the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. He has reportedly told authorities that he and nine others were Pakistani, that he was trained in Pakistan, and that the people behind the attack are still there. Pakistan has said it has no record of Kasab as a Pakistani citizen.

There are also details of conversations between the handlers in Pakistan and the gunmen during the attack, recovered weapons and data retrieved from recovered global positioning system data as well as satellite phones. Islamabad says there is no proof that the siege was launched from across the border.

New Delhi blamed the three-day November assault on banned Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba - which it says trained and equipped the militants who stormed Mumbai. The 10 gunmen chose high-profile targets including two five-star hotels, the main rail station, restaurants popular with foreign travelers and a Jewish center.

Shiv Shankar Menon, India's top foreign civil servant, said: "The request [to Pakistan] is for legal assistance to bring those responsible to Indian justice. We want real action."

Pakistani diplomats said that the Indian dossier would be "examined thoroughly and only then options discussed". On Sunday the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said Islamabad would not hand over any Pakistani citizens to India, despite an extradition clause in a regional treaty.

"The problem is still there. After all an incident has taken place and we have to get to the bottom of it," Qureshi said.

Over the weekend India's home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, said the "elaborate" terrorist attack could only have come from "state or state-assisted actors", hinting at a role for Pakistan's controversial military intelligence agency, the ISI.

"Somebody who is familiar with intelligence and who is familiar with commando operations has directed this operation. And that cannot be a non-state actor," said Chidambaram.

The new moves are part of an Indian diplomatic offensive to maintain international pressure on Pakistan and coincides with the arrival in Islamabad of Richard Boucher, America's assistant secretary of state for South Asia, who is expected to have tough words with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. Boucher's trip comes days before the vice-president elect Joe Biden lands in Islamabad with a congressional committee intent on securing the incoming Obama administration's role in the war on terror.

In December Pakistan redeployed some troops on its Indian border - away from its Afghan border - in effect withdrawing from efforts to gain control of the lawless tribal region that is a hotbed of al-Qaida activity. Pakistan also closed off the Khyber Pass, a key supply route for western troops in Afghanistan, saying it was launching search and destroy missions on the Pakistani border.

Police yesterday found three bullet-riddled bodies in the North Waziristan tribal region and said they were victims of the Taliban. One was a Pakistani construction contractor and two others were Afghan men the Taliban accused of spying for the United States, said local police.

"I don't think Pakistan needs added pressure (from India)," said Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani brigadier general turned analyst. "We are already under pressure and facing terrorism."